Adobe Premiere Pro - Intel Xeon W-3300 Processor Performance

Introduction

Intel has long been a staple in the world of workstation computing, but when AMD released their 3rd generation Threadripper line in late 2019 (and more recently Threadripper Pro), they took over the performance crown for a number of workflows. With the launch of the new Xeon W-3300 series, however, Intel is looking to retake its position as uncontested top dog in the workstation space.

The Intel Xeon W-3300 series of processors include a number of advantages over the previous W-3200 line, including an increase in max core count, 64 lanes of PCI-E Gen 4.0, 8 channel DDR4-3200 memory (up to 4TB max), and up to an 18% increase in IPC (instructions per clock). Threadripper Pro still has the advantage in terms of total core count (64 vs 38) and PCI-E Gen 4.0 lanes (128 vs 64), but these changes - plus a number of other improvements - should make the Xeon W-3300 series a significant upgrade over the previous generation.

If you want to read about what sets the Xeon W-3300 series apart in more detail, we recommend checking out our landing page for Intel Xeon W-3300 Processors.

In this article, we will be examining the performance of the new Intel Xeon W-3300 series CPUs in Premiere Pro compared to AMD's Threadripper Pro line. If you are interested in how these processors compare in other applications, we also have other articles for Photoshop, After Effects, DaVinci Resolve Studio, and several other applications available on our article listing page.

One very important thing to note is that we will be performing our testing with both the default "Balanced" Windows power profile, as well as the "High Performance" profile. In the course of our testing, we discovered that the Xeon W-3300 processors can sometimes give significantly lower performance on the default Windows power profile, so we thought it was important to show results for both profiles.

We will be leading with the "Balanced" profile results as that is what most systems will likely be using by default, but since changing the power profile is extremely easy, we will look at the performance with both power profiles.

If you would like to skip over our test setup and benchmark sections, feel free to jump right to the Conclusion.

Test Setup

Listed below are the specifications of the systems we will be using for our testing:

*All the latest drivers, OS updates, BIOS, and firmware applied as of July 20th, 2021

To see how well the Xeon W-3300 CPUs perform, we are primarily going to be comparing them to the AMD Threadripper Pro processors. For the test itself, we will be using our PugetBench for Premiere Pro V0.95.1 benchmark and Premiere Pro 15.4. This benchmark version includes the ability to upload the results to our online database, so if you want to know how your own system compares, you can download and run the benchmark yourself.

Raw Benchmark Results

While our benchmark presents various scores based on the performance of each test, we also like to provide individual results for you to examine. If there is a specific task that is a hindrance to your workflow, examining the raw results for that task is going to be much more applicable than the scores that our benchmark calculated.

Feel free to skip to the next sections for our analysis of these results to get a wider view of how each configuration performs.

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Premiere Pro Performance Analysis (Balanced Power Profile)

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As noted in the introduction of this article, we found that the Xeon W-3300 series processors often gave vastly different benchmark results depending on which Windows power profile we used. But to start off, we want to look at the performance with the default "Balanced" power profile.

With the default power profile, the new Xeon W-3300 CPUs all performed within 5% of each other, and fell behind the AMD Threadripper Pro processors by at least 6-22% depending on which AMD model you are looking at. That doesn't put Intel too far behind if you are considering purchasing a 16 core model, but when you get up to the 32 core models, AMD pulls ahead by 33% in terms of overall performance - while also having a $950 lower MSRP.

Luckily for Intel, it is easy enough to change the Windows power profile, so let's also take a look at what the performance is like if you were to switch to the "High Performance" power profile:

Premiere Pro Performance Analysis (High Performance Power Profile)

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Switching to the "High Performance" profile can give significant performance improvements with the Intel Xeon W-3300 processors. It varies based on the specific processor model, but ranges from a small 5% performance boost with the Xeon W-3335 16 core, to a large 20% boost with the Xeon W-3365 32 core and W-3375 38 Core. The AMD Threadripper Pro CPUs, on the other hand, showed virtually no difference when we changed the power profile.

This means that if you are willing to adjust the Windows power profile, the Intel Xeon W-3300 CPUs recover a lot of ground in Premiere Pro, but it isn't quite enough for them to overtake Threadripper Pro. Starting with the 16 models, the TR Pro 3955WX was still able to best the Xeon W-3335 by about 8% overall. And moving up to the 32 models (where AMD has a $950 lower MSRP), the difference is even larger with the TR Pro 3975WX beating the Xeon W-3365 by about 13%.

There isn't much of a reason to go beyond the 32 core models for Premiere Pro, but if you were to get the most expensive CPU from each line, AMD again has the lead with about a 10% performance advantage with the TR Pro 3995WX 64 Core versus the Xeon W-3375 38 Core - although in this case AMD is more expensive by about $990.

How well do the Intel Xeon W-3300 CPUs perform in Premiere Pro?

Similar to some of our other testing, how well the Xeon W-3300 series processors do in Premiere Pro can change drastically depending on what Windows power profile you use. In the default "Balanced" profile, Intel falls behind the AMD Threadripper Pro processors by anywhere from a small 6% to a larger 22% depending on which model you are looking at. Switching to the "High Performance" power profile can significantly improve performance on the higher core count Xeon processors, but even then, AMD Threadripper Pro holds about a 10% performance lead at similar core counts - and at a lower MSRP to boot.

Between the two processor families, we have to give the edge to Threadripper Pro for Premiere Pro. Not only do they perform slightly higher overall, but not having to tweak the Windows power profile is a nice bonus. Changing the power profile isn't difficult, but it also isn't ideal as it is something that many end users may not even consider doing on their system. Not to mention that it will raise the idle power consumption, heat, and noise of the system.

Keep in mind that the benchmark results in this article are strictly for Photoshop and that performance will vary widely in different applications. If your workflow includes other software packages (we have similar articles for Photoshop, After Effects, DaVinci Resolve Studio, and more), you need to consider how the system will perform in those applications as well. Be sure to check our list of Hardware Articles to keep up to date on how all of these software packages - and more - perform with the latest CPUs.

Tags: AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3000 Series, 3955WX, 3975WX, 3995WX, W-3375, W-3365, W-3345, W-3335, Intel Xeon W-3300, Premiere Pro